HP All-in-one 27" stuck on "Press the ESC key for startup menu"

[Cibelly007]

Hi everybody, 

I hope you are all doing well! I've been having this trouble with this computer for a couple days now. It doesn't do anything when I press the ESC key or any of the function keys when booting up. It only shows the function stuck at the lower right corner end on the screen.

I was able to open the computer, I changed the bios battery (I couldn't find where to reset the CMOS, but don't know if it will be helpful either), tested a different hard drive on the computer, tested the computer's HD on my personal computer as well, and it worked normally (Windows ran a bit slow and the PIN was unusable, had to login with a password instead, also it had some pending updates that I checked, but were mostly Windows updates, nothing related to hardware, at least not recently).

I don't really know what else to check or look for, because at first I thought it could be the hard drive failing, but it's been working, and even testing with a working SSD, it kept stuck on that screen. What else should I do? Not even the diagnostic loads up, it is always stuck on that screen.

Thank you for the help!

[shineyhawkz]

Hi!

from the sounds of the problem the hard drive isn't being detected. so if you've opened the machine just check the SATA connection to the Harddrive /SSD.

What I would advise you to try is to get a windows 10 ISO onto a bootable USB stick , Try it on another computer before this one. So plug it in and see if it gets to the setup screen , Once the setup shows just hit cancel as you know that the USB is booting correctly.

Plug this into the computer , once you power the machine on keep spamming the F9 key or the ESC this should bring up the boot screen and you should be able to select the USB stick. Then proceed with a fresh install. (note: this will wipe any old data on the drive)